Charlotte kept them with her the week, then Molly turned restless.
"I can't stand hearing another thing about Willy, Malise," she
declared. "I think he's a very dictatorial and outspoken person
myself."
So Molly and Alexina and Celeste went back to the hotel, which had
filled during the week of their absence. There was life and bustle in
the halls as they went in and, from their windows up-stairs, they
could see the lake gay with sail-boats.
The talk down-stairs concerned dances, picnics, fishing parties. The
somnolent Molly awoke, languor fell from her and she stepped to the
centre of the gay little whirl, the embodied spirit of festivity. Mr.
Henderson, incongruous element, was there, too, with deliberate
election it would seem, for Molly's eyes did no inviting or
encouraging. She did not need him in capacity of attendant or diverter
these days, and it was clear that in any other capacity he embarrassed
her. But he was not deterred because of that.
"You are coming to church, remember," he told her on Sunday morning.
Molly did not even play at archness with him now; she looked timid.
And at the hour she went, and Alexina with her. They had heard him
officiate before, and it seemed the mere performance of the law; but
into the dogmatic assertions of his discourse to-day glowed that fire
which is called inspiration. The Reverend Henderson was living these
days.
Molly, slim and elegant in her finery, moved once or twice in the pew.
Alexina could not quite tell if she was listening. But she was. "Dear
me," she said, from under the shadow of her lace parasol, as they
walked home, "how wearing it must be to be so--er--intense." She spoke
lightly, but she shivered a little. The Reverend Henderson had laid
stress upon his text, "In the midst of life we are in death!"
As they went up the hotel steps Molly turned and looked around her and
Alexina turned too, since it was Molly's mood. The sky was blue, the
air breathed with life and glow and sparkle. There was a taste almost
of sea about it. On the prim young orange trees about the new houses
across the street the fruit hung golden.
"He used to reach them for me--Father Bonot did," said Molly, slowly,
"before I was tall enough. They're sweeter--Louisiana oranges are. I
used to run and hide behind his skirts, too, when I was afraid my
mother was going to whip me."
They went in. Half way up the stairs Molly paused. "You Blairs, you're
all like _him_--not like Father Bonot."
"Like who?" asked Alexina.
"Like Mr. Henderson. You Blairs and Mr. Henderson would have pulled
aside your skirts so my mother could have caught me and whipped me."
Something like apprehension sprang into Alexina's eyes. "Oh," she said
anxiously, "no; surely I'm not like that, and Aunt Harriet's not!"
"Yes, you are," said Molly stubbornly, "you all of you are. It's
because"--a sort of childish rage seized on her--"it's because you're
all of you so--so damnably sure of your duty." And Molly's foot
stamped the landing in her little fury.
It was funny, so funny that Alexina laughed. And perhaps it was true.
She could have hugged Molly; she never came so near to being fond of
Molly before.
* * * * *
December arrived, Christmas came and went. Life was almost
pastoral--no, hardly that; it was more _un fete champetre_. Each day
after breakfast the hotel emptied itself into the sunshine and
merriment, emptied itself, that is, of all but the invalids. Molly
shunned these. She never even looked the way of one if she could help
it.
There was a lake party one night. They took boat at the hotel pier in
various small craft and followed the chain of lakes to an island
midway of the farthest. The moon was up as they started.
The party was of the gayest, and one might have said that Mr.
Henderson was out of his element. Certainly his face was hardly
suggestive of hilarity. But he followed Mrs. Garnier into one of the
larger boats and took his place with a sort of doggedness. Even in the
moonlight the sharpening angle of his cheek-bone was visible, and the
deepening of the sockets in which his eyes were set, eyes that
followed Mrs. Garnier insistently.
Molly being of the party, it followed that Alexina was, too, but that
William Leroy was of it seemed to quicken something in his own sense
of humour. His manner with the gay world was perhaps a little stony.
He avowed, when thus accused by Alexina and Mr. Jonas, that it was to
cover bashfulness.
"I hate people," he declared.
Yet, for a bashful youth, he was singularly deliberate and masterful,
seeming to know what he wanted and how to get it. To-night it was that
Alexina go with him in a small boat. The others started first, a youth
in a striped flannel coat, strumming a guitar.
King put out last. He rowed slowly and often the boat drifted. When
they entered the lock connecting the first lake with the next, the
other boats had all passed through. The moon scarcely penetrated the
dense foliage on the banks above them, and the ripple of the water
against the boat seemed only to emphasize the silence, the aloofness.
There must have been an early blossom of jasmine about, so sweet was
the gloom.
When they passed out into the vaulted space and open water of the
next lake, the other boats were far ahead. The tinkling cadence of the
guitar floated back to them.
He rowed lazily on. Presently he spoke. "I wonder if you remember how
we used to talk, 'way back yonder, about the Land of Colchis?"
"Yes," said Alexina; "I remember."
"I believe we are there at last. We closed the contract for our
oranges to-day. It's pretty fair gold, the fruit in Colchis. We pick
for delivery on Monday."
He never had talked to her of personal affairs before, it was Mrs.
Leroy who had told her what she knew.
"There are several purchasers looking at the place we are going to
sell, for dwellers in Colchis, you know, are only sojourners; they
long for home."
"The Jasons, too?"
"This Jason at any rate. He wants four seasons to his year, and to
hear his horse's feet on pike, and to put his seed into loam."
They slipped through the next lock and out upon the long length of
Cherokee, the lake of the island which was their destination. It
seemed to bring self-consciousness upon the speaker.
"You are so the same as you used to be," he said, "I forget. How do I
know you want to hear all this?"
"You do know," said Alexina, honestly.
He did not answer. They were coming up to the other boats now, beached
at the island. Lights were flickering up and down the sand and the
rosy glare of a beach fire shone out from under the darkness of the
trees. Figures were moving between it and them and they could hear
voices and laughter.
"You do know," repeated the girl.
They had grounded. He was shipping the oars. Then he got up and held
out a hand to steady her. She, standing, put hers into it. They did
not look at each other.
"Yes," he said, "I do know. You're too honest to pretend."
He helped her along and out upon the sand. There was a negro boy
awaiting to take charge of the boat. They went up the slight
declivity. He had not loosed her hand, she had not withdrawn it. The
laughter, the chat, the aroma of boiling coffee, the rattle of dishes
being unpacked reached them. They stood for a moment in the shadow,
then her hand left his and they went to join the others.
The dozen men and women were grouped about the pine-knot fire, for the
warmth was grateful.
There was badinage and sally, light, foolish stuff, perhaps, but
flung like shining nebulae along the way by youth in its whirl of mere
being. It is good to know how to be frivolous sometimes. Alexina felt
the exhilaration of sudden gaiety, daring. She sat down by the youth
with the guitar and the striped flannel coat.
"'And both were young, and one was beautiful,'"
warbled the owner to his guitar, making room for her. "Right here,
Miss Blair, by me."
More than one presently stole a look at the tall, rather handsome Miss
Blair, hitherto conceded reserved and different from her mother. She
was laughing contagiously with the youth, and in the end she gained
the guitar over which they were wrangling. She knew a thing or two
about a guitar herself, it seemed--Charlotte Leroy could have
explained how--as many chords as the owner anyhow. But the young
Leroy, it would appear, was sulky, certainly unsociable, sitting
there, removed to the outskirts of things, to smoke and stare at the
moon. Yet never once did the girl look his way. It was enough that
they were to return together.
Nor was she paying attention to Molly either. There are times when the
mad leap and rush of one's own blood absorbs all consciousness.
Molly was gay, too, feverishly gay. Some one had brewed a hot
something for the delectation and comforting of the chilly ones, and
Molly's thin little hand was holding out her picnic cup as often as
any one would fill it. It was Mr. Jonas who presently took the cup
away and tried to wipe a stain off the pretty dress with his
handkerchief.
When the start homeward was made, King came over to Alexina.
"I have to ask you to change to the large boat going back," he said, a
little stiffly perhaps; "Mr. Jonas is taking Mrs. Garnier in the small
one, and Mr. Henderson says he will see to you."
When she answered her voice was lightly nonchalant.
"Why not?" she said, absorbed in putting on her jacket.
She took her place in the boat by Mr. Henderson. Evidently the evening
had gone wrong with him, for his face was ghastly in the moonlight,
and his long, nervous fingers never stopped fingering the little gold
cross hanging below the line of his vest.
William Leroy did not return with the party at all. Not that she was
concerned with that, Alexina assured herself proudly, it was only that
she could not help hearing the others wondering at his entering a boat
with the negro boy and rowing swiftly away up the lake. It was clear
to her. Lake Nancy would have been the next lake on the chain had the
channel been cut. He meant to tramp across home to save himself the
trouble of going back to town. She did not think he had very good
manners at any rate. Yet, when the boats came in at the hotel pier, it
was William Leroy who met them. He waited for Alexina and walked with
her a little ahead of the others up through the yard.
"Mrs. Garnier is not well," he told her. "I went home and drove in and
Mr. Jonas is putting her in the wagon now. We'll take her out to
mother; she's all upset over something."
She stopped short, having forgotten her mother. "I can't let you," she
declared; "it isn't right to Mrs. Leroy."
"Mother's waiting," he said. "You'd better go in and say something to
somebody, and get Celeste."
Mrs. Leroy said that people always obeyed the King William tone.
Alexina stood, hesitating. He waited.
Then she went.
He was in the wagonette when she and Celeste came out. The place was
still and deserted, even Mr. Jonas gone, for which Alexina was
grateful.
Molly was on the back seat, and Celeste, gaunt and taciturn, started
to mount beside her.
Molly protested. "Not you, mammy; go in front. I want Malise--not the
big Malise, you know--the little one."
The girl, taking the wraps from the old woman, got in by her mother
and began to put a shawl about her. The dew was falling heavily. Molly
touched her hand. "Once Alexander said to me, 'Let Malise keep tight
hold on you, Molly.'"
William Leroy was flicking the mules travelling briskly through the
sandy streets, and talking to the old woman, but she was sullen and
the conversation died.
Alexina's heart was choking her. Her father--daddy--Molly had spoken
to her of daddy.
And all the while Molly was talking on, feverishly, incessantly. "You
must keep him away, Malise, that minister, he worries me and his eyes
make me uncomfortable, following me. He makes me remember things, and
I don't want to. He says it's his duty. He said to-night I'm not going
to get well and that he had to tell me in order to save me from
myself. Make him keep away from me, Malise; I'm afraid of him. I took
it, _that_, to-night, to forget what he said; say it isn't so,
Malise--say it."
Willy leaned back over the seat, talking in steady, everyday fashion.
"There's the moon setting ahead of us; see it, Mrs. Garnier?
Everything's so still, you say? Why, no; it's not so still. There is a
cock crowing somewhere, and that must be a gopher scuttling under the
palmetto. Now, look backward. See that line of light? It's the dawn."